Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1887-06-30
"FOR MY COUNTRY'S SAKE"
The Beauty and Dignity of True Pa
triOtism.

The Beauty and Dignity Of True Pa
triOtiSm.
From a speech delivered at Peekskill
on the Fourth of July, 1876, by Henry
Ward Beecher, we extract the following
paragraphs on the country's elements of
growth and the beauties of patriotism:
Look back, then, through the hundred
years of our National history. They are
to me like the ascending of stairs, some
of which are broader, some narrower,
some with higher rising and some with
less than the others; but on the whole
there has been steady ascent in INTEL
ligeDce, in conscience. in purity, in in>
dustry, in happiness, in the art of living
well collectively, and we stand oday
higher than at any other time. Our
burdens are flea bites.
10 another hundred years, not one of
US will be here. But it does not matter
so much to US who come and go,or what
takes place in the future. except so far
as our influence is concerned. When a
hundred years hence the untelling sun
that saw Arnold and Andre anu Wash>
ington, bu. will not tell Us one word of
history, shall shine on these enchanted
hills and on this unchanging river-then
it is for US to have set in motion, or to
have given renewed impulse to those
great causes, intellectual, moral. social
and political, which have rolled our
prosperity to such height.
To every yoHng man here that is be
ginning life, let me say:-LiSten not to
those insidious teachers who tell you
that patriotism is d sham, and that all
public men are corrupt or corrupters.
Men in public or private life are corrupt
here and there, but let me say to yOu,no
corruption in government would be half
50 bad as to have the seeds of unbelief
in public administration sown in the
minds of the young. If you teach the
young that their chief magistrates, their
cabinets and their representatives are of
course corrupt, what will that be but to
teach them to be themselves corrupt? |
stand here to bear witness and say that
publicity may consist with virtue and
does. There are men that serve the
public for the public, though they them
selves thrive by it also. | would SOW in
your minds romance of patriotism and
love of country that shall be necessary
to the love which you have for your own
households, and | would say to every
mother that teaches her child to pray,
next to the petition, Our Father which
art in heaven" let him learn the petition
"Our Fatherland," and so let our chil>
dren grow up to love God, to love man,
and to love their country, and to be glad
to serve their country, as we'll as their
God and their fellow men, though it
may be necessary that they should lay
down their lives to serve it.
l honor the unknown ones who used
to walk here, and who fell in battle. II
honor, too, every armless man, every
limping soldier, who through patriotism
went to the battlefield and came back
lame and crippled, and bears manfully
and heroically his deprivation. What
though he find no occupation? What
though he be forgotten? He has in him
the imperishable sweetness of his
though: 81 did it for my country's
sake" For Gods sake and for your
country's sake, live. and you shall live
fOravar